The Great American State Fair was a good idea…

Horribly, horribly executed almost entirely because someone couldn’t help but politicize it.

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At night, the ice weasels come.

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As I read in an article about the algae-filled reflecting pool, it's not even close to being the biggest issue or the most important issue to have with this administration. But it is a more visible/visceral one - how the hell could they screw up a major anniversary like this? Oh yeah, the same way they're screwing up everything else.

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The 2007 ND-UCLA game was a once in a lifetime experience, I hope

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Really, as far as I can tell, not much about the 250th has been well publicized. My family (and I assume most of you are in the same boat) still have various memorabilia from 1976. My grandparents collected the 1976 quarters like crazy. I get that the centennials are going to be a bigger deal, but there doesn't seem to be ANYTHING going on. I've seen the badge on a few Dodge commercials I guess. But otherwise.....

I get to DC for work every few weeks. There's been exactly jack squat promoting these celebrations all spring. No signage anywhere. Not in the airports. Not in hotels. Not around the Mall.

Even if the event didn't suck, I don't know anybody would have known about it to plan a visit in advance.

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that have been pretty popular. But these have been historical speaker events around the American Revolution and what it has meant rather than celebratory.

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I was 24 years old and it felt to me that most people were really excited it and about having a great party.
I went to Philadephia with a bunch of my buddies so we could watch the fireworks (and drink gallons of beer) in the city where the USA began.
Today, everybody seems "meh, who gives a shit?"

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I was 14. But the lead-up was a couple of years of "on this date 200 years ago." It was exciting. This is bullshit.

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"Somewhere in Middle America"

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Anyway, among the topics I'd never thought about before and prefer to not think about, perhaps a fun time was had by some.

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1976 wasn't a great time -- Watergate was recent memory, US was defeated in Vietnam a few years earlier, unemployment was almost 10% and inflation was @13%, the price of gas had recently quadrupled. But not many people fretted the end of democracy in the country. It all seems quaint now, but people were excited. I don't get that at all at the moment.

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"F--- everyone who isn't us."
#Team128

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has been transferred to the happiness we’re sharing in the summer of 2026 with all the tourists here for the World Cup.

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"F--- everyone who isn't us."
#Team128

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Reich, Charlie Sykes, Dan Rather, and Joyce Vance has gotten me at least a bit motivated to be more celebratory as an act of resistance.

But I've spent much of my time anticipating the 250th planning to sit in my basement with all the lights off and just begging for it to be over.

Also, I object to the assertion that this is our country's 250th birthday. We didn't create a country in 1776. We just achieved free agency. It wasn't until 1787 until we took our talents to the Constitutional Convention and not until 1790 that the Constitution was fully ratified. So, either 2027 or 2030 is actually the 250th birthday.

All we can do is hang on for dear life until then, clinging to the hope that we will still have something to celebrate. If we do, I'll let it rip for real on the 4th of July in 2027 (though I know that's not the date the Constitution was signed).

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I remember all sorts of bicentennial branding on all sorts of things: the red, white, and blue star everywhere you looked, that wavy "76" logo. I remember the fireworks show at Wash U. had all these ground display spinners, vehicles, cannons, etc, shooting off sparks everywhere.

You don't really see those ground-based fireworks anymore. I'm sure they caused a lot of injuries and destruction in their day.

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Instead that fuckhead put his fingerprints all over it and you got shit like this.

[image]

https://www.wral.com/video/confederate-flag-removed-nc-exhibit-great-american-state-fai...

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"F--- everyone who isn't us."
#Team128

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the Polo Grounds

The Great American State Fair was a good idea…

There was one?

It's a damn shame

Yes. In addition to it being not well publicized at all.

We have had some events in our department

How many of you remember the 1976 Bicentennial?

The bicentennial was huge --

I missed it by, hmmph, a bit less than a year...

I was 8 and was a minute man in our town parade.

I feel like most people just want it to come and go.

It’s like the happiness we felt back in the summer of 1976

In all those horrible, horrible blue cities.

That's where I've been. But some combination of Robert

Uh, I think your math is a bit off there, BG

Shut up. I was a PLS major.

formative memory at 6 years old

This could have been a really great idea and a lot of fun.